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Heroic fantasy requires your characters to wear their underwear on the outside and stand up! If you are planning on playing in a heroic fantasy game your character needs to be the one the King thinks of when in dire need. It had better be your name on the peasants’ lips rather than a gods when the Tarrasque crests the horizon because heroic fantasy needs heroes, not zeroes.

These are the tropes of heroic fantasy, and largely high fantasy. They are the Dragonlance Saga and David Gemmell’s books as opposed to Elric the anti-hero. So, how do you play a character in a fantasy game that seeks to make you the star that offers change to the world around you. To make things safer for the masses and become legends across time and space?

Heroic characters are bold characters. Their actions are never for themselves and they always attempt the impossible. If there is a hard decision to make it is the heroic character that makes it and it is always the decision that risks the most but achieves the huge win. For example, if there is a 10% chance you can get all the peasants across the gorge or there is a 90% chance you can save most of the peasants crossing the rapids the hero always goes for the hard option (the bridge) because it saves everyone!

Of course this means that true heroes are forces for good and they put that force above all else. It is OK not to listen to or bargain with the lich because it is an evil creature. There need not be any thought about that. Blast the lich because it is obvious it is evil. A truly heroic individual does not work in grey. Grey areas are things that exist in dark fantasy, not heroic fantasy!

The heroic character also tends to serve a force for good, like a good God or a kingdom. Make sure that does not detract from your character though. Toss it in as a catch phrase here and there (“By the power of greyskull!”) but make sure that it is all about you! The hero is the centre of the story and the reason is backstory. Don’t let it shine too much.

When interacting make sure you are the pure fit for your class. Finely toned fighters that move gracefully. Hooded rogues whose voice is like a whisper but cuts through any noise. A wizard in flowing colorful robes with a pointed hat and eyes that burn with power. You are much more than any non adventurer. Prepare some cliched words for when you meet your nemesis, because you can be assured that you will meet a nemesis in a heroic campaign.

Spread your legend too. If there is no bard in the town, hire one to follow you around and turn your deeds into song and poetry. Hire a bard to talk to the damsels or gents that you saved in your most recent action. Speak loudly in taverns of your latest exploits. You are no hero if no one knows your name!

If you know you are playing in that heroic campaign give some thought as you build the character on how you want them to stand up and shine. A good character will trump a neutral and an evil character but these characters can also shine in their own right. Just make sure you play the character bold and brilliant to ensure that the hero within becomes the hero that the whole world sees! Until next week, keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

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Gary Con VI is right around the corner! On Thursday morning I will be getting up, having breakfast with the family and then headed out. I hope to get into a pick-up game of something on Thursday night and I have scheduled games on Friday and Saturday, with a short seminar on Sunday morning before I hit the road and head back home.

For those also headed out and fans of the DCC RPG Actual Play podcast I have the continuing saga of the adventurers’ assault on the Wizard’s Tower scheduled to post earlier than normal on Wednesday morning. So be sure to fire up your favorite podcast client before heading out.

Beyond that the blog will be pretty quiet through early next week. I was going to try to chronicle my trip, but I have switched thoughts and plan on relaxing and just enjoying gaming for those four days. I’ve been doing a lot of freelance work this past couple of months and also hard at work on Iron Tavern Press as well. I think I will use the con as a chance to recharge my batteries!

With that said, I am sure I will take some pics and such – so keep an eye on my Twitter feed and G+ feed for some occasional fun that will inevitably find its way into my social streams.

And if you are going to be at Gary Con this year – feel free to stop me and say hey! Whether you are fan of the blog, Iron Tavern Press, want to ask when the next Spellburn episode is, or if we just frequent some of the same circles – say hi!

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I read a blog on the weekend of the bloggers top 10 favorite games that were free to download. I was impressed at the depth of games that had been included and was even more impressed by the inclusion of at least one “big” name game of years gone by. Now the list that was provided was across all genres and I thought to myself that I could probably put something together in a similar style for the readers over here at the Iron Tavern blog to have a look over and consider playing. Honestly, quality gaming has never been so cheap!

Mark Knights’ Top Five Free Fantasy Games

With a nod to the writing styles of Terry Pratchett and his disc-world novels this game sneaks in at number five. Humor in a fantasy game is always welcome at my table so let the system actually incorporate it! It is a high magic, high paced humorous look at the standard genre and well worth a look.

If you like a fair amount of crunch with your game try out the d6 fantasy game. The rules are in place and the game has a fantastic flow to them. Even better than the robust rules set has to be the array of supplements for the game that are all free too! So they don’t suck you in with the basic free rules, they also give everything I could ever need to run a game!

Written in an OSR style and based loosely on 3.5 edition D&D also Basic Fantasy is an open source role playing game written for fans of fantasy RPG’s by the fans of fantasy RPG’s! I am a big open source fan and it is why this one pips d6 Fantasy for third spot. The scope and setup of this game is great and I am very impressed with this games achievements! In this version not only can you download and play it, you could also possibly contribute to the game as well!

Coming in a close second is a game that I have spent a good deal of time in my past playing. Talislanta! That is right, you can now download this awesome game for free (any of the 5 editions are up for grabs). This series prided itself on having no elves and in fact it has a very different fantasy setting that is rich and detailed. I am actually listed as one of the official play-testers for fifth edition which is a bit of a blast. I had a great deal of fun with this game. Although some of the books appear huge the rules are actually quite moderate and the books are heavy on setting. This game is well worth a look!

This is quite honestly one of the best looking, most professional free games out there. It is a game translated from its native German and it appears slick, rules lite and a fun game. There are a load of materials you can get for it including adventures, world information and a host of other materials. For such a great game I am surprised at how few people know about it AND how hard it is to find on Google! Use the link above to download the rules and get into some Dungeon slaying right now!

Check these games out and let me know what you think! Keep rolling 🙂

All images were taken from the websites that have been linked to this page to advertise the download of these products.

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

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Something that gets assumed a lot about the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Actual Play podcast is that we all knew each other prior to this game. In reality, it is online gaming that brought us together. Today’s meta post about the podcast is how we got together as an online gaming group.

Group History

My interest in DCC RPG was growing back in the summer of 2012 but it didn’t really seem like my local group’s thing at the time. G+ Hangout gaming was taking off and an opportunity to try out DCC via a Hangout was presented. Carl Bussler (of Flagons and Dragons podcast fame and much more) was going to start running DCC RPG. He wrangled up a group of folks to start out with Sailors on the Starless Sea. Hopefully I don’t forget anyone, but that group had me, Kelly, and Matt in it. It also had Tony and James who both did brief forays into the one-shot I ran and early in the Sunken City Campaign days.

We managed to play two sessions of Sailors before that game went to the wayside. Carl’s schedule got busy and we lost some momentum. I ended up running The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust as a one-shot. That game had Kelly and Matt, plus Tony, I think James, and Dustin in it. We had a great time and I decided to kick off an actual Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign back in the late summer of 2012.

When Sunken City launched we had Matt, Kelly, Dustin, Tony, James, and Joe (a local friend of mine). James made a session or two, Tony held on for another session or two before school reared up. We quickly brought Aaron on board with some 0-levels just after the other characters hit 0-level.

From Fall of 2012 to Spring 2013 the group was Matt, Kelly, Dustin, Joe, and Aaron. Eventually Kelly had to drop because of time commitments, but we kept on with the core group rolling through the rest of Spring 2013 into the summer. Coming into the summer we made plans to meet up at Origins in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh – I should also mention that a Dungeonslayers online game was started by Kelly in January of 2013 and there was a heavy mixing of the same players with some new faces in the DS game. The Origins meetup also involved a couple of the Dungeonslayer players – Adam (now in the DCC group) and another Dustin.

A great time was had at Origins and that likely did a lot to further cement the solidness of this online group.

After Origins, Joe needed to drop from the game so we were looking for another player again. We ended up recruiting Adam from the DS game to play DCC.

Which brings us to today, a group made up of Aaron, Adam, Dustin, Matt, and me.It seems Kelly will be returning to the group in April bringing a lot of the original crew together again.

Strength of Online Gaming

A lot of folks will say online gaming isn’t like being at the table and steer away from it. And while there are differences, online gaming has brought me a group of folks that I would call great friends. Meeting at Origins helped cement that (and we have plans to do the same this year at Origins and this time we’re dragging Aaron along – can’t wait to meet “Baptist” in person!)

So if you are out there lamenting the fact you can get some local folks together for gaming, don’t be too quick to dismiss online gaming. With a little work I suspect you can find yourself a great group of folks to play games with and build some new friendships as you do so! I know our group has had a great time playing. It has worked out very well for us!

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You put a whole lot of preparation into the first game. Built the skeleton of a campaign world and some NPC’s, possibly even a few adventures planned. But how do you hook the players? How are you going to get them keen for this game, then the next, and the one after that!

Let me give you a hint. Watch a James Bond movie. Not the whole thing if you are time poor, just the bit before the starting credits. What does every Bond movie have in common to get the viewer into the main movie? Action. Hook them with a good level of heart pounding action.

Don’t plan this action out too much, just some combatants thrown together that might give a bit of a hint of what is to come. Once you have that and a setting (the players find themselves at a dungeon entrance as a swarm of skeletons start toward them from the adjoining cemetery) ask the players why they are there? Give them a bit of power to work out how they find themselves here.

In this initial moment the players will come up with some hook plots that you can use and they will also build a past. A past that gels their characters together. The pressure will be on too. They will want to get into the battle and so the plot will come out nice and naturally. The cohesiveness of the group will build from this point.

The job of the GM at this point is to encourage them to come up with this story and the greatest encouragement is to ask them questions and show some interest in the story they are building. When they tell you a Demon Lord ordered them to the dungeon ask them what the Demon Lord’s name is and why they sent them? What can be found there? As they start talking about how they all got together make sure everyone gets involved. If you have two players building something without starring others turn the focus of the story to them. Ask the other players how they enter the story and encourage them to take it over.

And that’s it! Call Action! Get into the fight. Ask them why they are there and take lots of notes about what the players come up with. You can use this to flavor your main plot or use their material to build some interesting side-plots in the campaign. Just make sure you use it and start as soon as you can because the players will lap up their involvement in the stories that sprout from their imaginations. If they do not get hooked in a campaign they helped shape then they never will! Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

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Iron Tavern Press has two products out in the world now, with more Pocket-Sized Encounters on their way. One decision that is now obvious to the public is that I chose to go the no cover art route with these products. This was not a decision made lightly and this post looks at what went into this decision for Iron Tavern Press.

The primary factor is of course cost. Artists deserve to be paid for their talents. But with the somewhat steady release cycle I have in mind for the launch of Iron Tavern Press, my up front expenses to put a unique cover on each product was a very real cost that I might not see return on until the venture gets it feet under it.

These funds seemed better spent to me by putting it into editing services, the tools to publish a clean product, and interior art that spruced up the product. With the release schedule I had in mind this is the decision path I leaned towards to get Iron Tavern Press established.

The other factor is the quality of that art. Given a limited budget there is a question of what quality of art would be on the cover if I went that route. I did some mock-ups a few months ago with some images. Frankly, they had a more amateurish look to them than the minimalistic covers I have launched with. Just as great cover art can help a product, bad cover art can hurt a product.

The decision is not without its risks. Who doesn’t love cool cover art? I see it all the time – a cool cover gets posted to a social network, it gets shared around and that is all based on the appearance of the cover. Very little is said about the actual content of the product. Cool cover art definitely can help with exposure and generate some excitement about a product.

My feedback from the mock-ups I sent out was mixed. Some encouraged using cover art and others understood why I would make the decision to launch products with no cover art. Even those that encouraged the use of cover art acknowledged the cover mock-up was very clean and looked well done. It at the very least gave a professional appearance, even if it did lack cover art.

In the end I chose the clean, minimalistic covers for the Pocket-Sized Encounters line. I am happy with the choice and it has allowed me to use quality interior art (some stock art, some commissioned pieces) and hire an RPG editor to make sure the words in the product are the best they can be.

All of Iron Tavern Press’ products are currently on sale as part of the GM’s Day Sales going on at the beginning of March. This is a great opportunity to check them out (cover art or not!) at either shop.d20pfsrd.com or RPGNow.

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I have not posted anything gaming for a while because I work in the Tax profession. That means from January through April 15 I can be quite busy working long hours and not finding enough time to do other things. We do have a little slow down here in March so that brings me to one realistic aspect that is rarely seen in games: Taxes!

No one likes taxes. They are a pain in the ass to do and the system, at least here in America, is complex and serves to do more than just collect taxes. It is a carrot and a stick system rewarding certain behavior while punishing other types of behavior. The rewards come in the form of refundable credits and refunds while the punishment is a greater tax liability. Can that be translated into gaming though?

I think the better question is not can it, but should it be? In games like D&D that tend to be a bit of a resource management game a Tax system is just pulling gold out of the PC’s pockets. One would also want to tax the magical assets of the PCs and not just the cash on hand. I like the idea but I don’t know a way of doing so that is fun. I would not want to place a tax system into the game and have the players feel like it is just there to punish them. It would be easy to come up with paper work for them to fill out and get them involved in the taxing process but that just seems tedious and a good way for the players to revolt. Paranoia is the only game I’ve seen that paper work is accepted and even there it is easy to go overboard.

So, how do we make Taxes fun? It can’t be just taxes. I think it needs to be an event like Tax day when the tax collector and his armed guards and mages come around collecting from every poor soul they encounter. It could be like in Robin Hood where they just break into everyone’s place and take a large percentage of anything valuable they find. This does put the tax collector in the villain’s role. I think most players would find that acceptable. You can have the PCs make it difficult for the taxes to be collected or even rob the tax collector making the taxes not collected.

That’s when the twist comes in. If not enough taxes are collected then bad things might start happening around the kingdom. The treasury gets smaller without taxes to fill it up so maybe the guards don’t get paid and they go on strike. Or roads and bridges don’t get repaired. We don’t have to make the kingdom good or evil just show that the money is being used for real tangible purposes and when the money goes away it eventually has a very real effect on the setting. Less money in the King’s coffers could lead to inflation. It could lead the King to search out alternative revenue streams and who knows what kind of trouble that could get the Kingdom in.

I would not use taxes as a major plot but I think it would be a good little background detail. If the PCs get great wealth and they pay their proper taxes then the Kingdom might improve. I would start out with a Kingdom that has needs of improvements and then if the Taxes come in show that some improvements happen but if the PCs hinder the tax collection then show things getting worse. Even if one establishes all this it is still very possible for the PCs to really not care. But once they get wealthy if they open a business or buy some property then the DM can hit them up with different kinds of taxes. If they don’t pay them then spend a session taking the PCs though an Audit. They will never complain about going through something like the Tomb of Horrors again.

Chris Gath. I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then. In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6. My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game. On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out. I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times. Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

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In Pathfinder I love a good warrior with noble intentions. The Lawful Good Paladin riding his noble charger, the glorious Cavalier waving his banner as he leads his companions into victorious battle. These warriors extol the virtues of fairness and defenders of the good. Or so we think anyway. In reality, at the service of a lord or king what were these warriors like in reality? We love to tell tales of the noble and just but in reality, in our very own histories is that how these warriors acted.

The short answer is of course no. The warriors, knights, and cavaliers alike were formidable enemies in their thick armour and with their strength of arms. But they did not care for the rights of the individual or the plight of the downtrodden. In fact it was these very people that often guided the forces that worked against the peasants or even the average man. These individuals served a noble or king in their own right and saw that the edicts of the authoritarian arm were enacted. There were taxes to collect, tithes to receive, crops to be harvested. A farmer or peasant would consider themselves lucky to have a talking to if the crops were late, for in reality the forces under the night would use pressure tactics and at times were downright thugs to get quotas met.

So where does this trope of good and fair knights living by a personal code of honor come from? It comes from the Knight Code of Chivalry that formed out of the Crusades. Chivalry is actually a word with connotations attached to horsemanship and it was attached to these mounted warriors who served in the crusades. From this was born the chivalrous code of the warriors who were mainly attached to the church. They lived to protect the weak (which meant women and elderly of the church), and protect the interests of the church. In their eyes though unless an individual was a God-fearing believer of the church, they were fair game.

The tales of King Arthur in Britain give heed to the idea of courtly behaviour and the notion that Knights protected all of the weak. These tales though never really touch on the lives of the peasants around them, only those that were attached to the court and the like making it clear that class segregation was definitely a clear delineation of the Knight overall.

That leads us to question how we handle Knights and Cavaliers in a game. Cavaliers are a much more clear cut differentiation in Pathfinder as they have their codes already set out for them. The codes are reflective of the fantasy tropes that pervade the fiction. Cavaliers protect the innocent and strike down those that would do evil (of course they are not restricted to good roles but this is the focus) but what of our true Knights, the Paladins of our fantasy world.

Paladins largely serve a god and embody their ideals. These paladins serve Gods that are good in nature and proponents of the law, much like the knights that followed the Chivalrous code. Now if a Paladin in game struck down a peasant due to them not supporting the ideals of their god, where would that place that as a Games Master? Do we make them seek atonement and take their powers from them? But what if that peasant had cursed their God’s name? What should we do? The chivalrous code of real life Knights would have them make war with these individuals wherever they found them. So should we take their powers off them instead when they turn a blind eye to this behavior?

I think the answer to this situation will indeed lie at the heart of your game style. Most would probably take the powers if they struck down the peasant and that is certainly in keeping with the glorified, romanticised version of a Knight. I think I lean more toward the serving of a god’s tenets and striking down infidels which is a much more realistic or gritty style but it adds to the complexity of the role. Let me know what your thoughts are in regards to including the more realistic aspects of character classes are into the fantasy genre in the comments. Until next week, keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

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There are some tried and true methods for sharing the fear, or scaring the living daylights out of your audience. These apply equally well in role playing games as they do to other formats of horror as well. From probably the earliest days of sharing a tale around the fire these techniques have been spreading the joy of being scared down through the ages, so pay close heed reader, lest the darkness swallow you before you finish my terrible techniques…

First and foremost is framing the game. You want the player to know upfront this is going to be an adventure filled with horror. You probably wonder at this point if this is the best way to instill fear but consider an example. Say you are running a game where the fearsome krakledon thought extinct for over a millennia erupts from the earth and swallows whole the birth town of our adventurers. If it is unexpected, i.e. the players think they are in a standard game, the players become shocked at this event, rather than in fear (fear may come later but shock is generally the initial response). If you have framed it (and this does not mean specifically saying it was horror but perhaps scary portents on the lead up) then the event will not take them by surprise it will scare them as they realize the krakledon is some great evil emerging from the ground (note, krakledon is a made up creature. Don’t go looking for it.). Some games do this just by playing them like Call of the Cthulhu and Ravenloft. If you are playing that game you are already in the frame of mind that is required because you expect it to have horror in it.

Lighting can be used to great effect when playing a horror game. If ever there is a time to turn the lights out and use candles it is while you are playing a horror game. Spend some time making sure your candles have built up wax drips down the side, new candles can ruin the effect. Also, use a GM screen and have loads of tea light candles burning on your side so the light from them comes from below your face, casting eerie, scary shadows. You can of course take this further and deck out the table like a gothic nightmare and even get some spray on spider webs to play. If you have a stark basement or a dusty attic, put it to use and play there. If you have a shed and live in a windy area that will make strange noises, all the better.

If you have only a kitchen table to play at, investigate getting a spooky soundtrack to play through a sound system. I have several favorites to use. I have one that is as old as the hills with chains and witches, winds and wolves. All great stuff for traditional horror. Being a bit of a horror video game nut I also have several horror video game soundtracks that spook the nerve from my players! I have one in particular that spooks my (15 year old) daughter so much that I have been banned from playing it due to the nightmares that follow! If you can, have a generic soundtrack just looping but if you want to get specialized, cue up the tracks you need and use them at predetermined points in the story to send your players packing!

Narration techniques also come into it. Make sure you overplay your big baddies and have them become unforgiving nightmares in your portrayal. If you want to hit them with something new start describing the leadup a little quieter so the players have to really concentrate on what you are saying and then when you want to surprise them BOOM! Make it loud and use large hand gestures! It should unnerve them. Also with a horror game make sure you are descriptive. Don’t say “You look in the ballroom and see a vampire with his two thralls in tow” say instead “A gaunt pale figure walks to the table. He spies an open curtain reflecting the scene and hisses something to the misbegotten pale man that stands next to a second beautiful but tragic figure of a woman. The pair react quickly and run forward closing the curtain and then move to the table to snuff out two of the candles near where their master will sit. The pale figure then moves so quickly, almost at an inhuman speed to seat himself at the table. He waits for the woman to come forward. She grabs the crystal wine glass and draws out a bottle from inside her cloak, unstoppers it and pours a thick red wine into it for him before withdrawing to the shadows with her male counterpart.” Description is key here. Never, ever, name your creature types. Let the players work it out. They are likely to decide that this is a vampire but they will never be 100% certain because you never stated it was.

Draw on your own experiences. If you have ever been on camp and told ghost stories around the campfire then remember what scared you. That style of tale sharing is the oldest that exists and the tropes it uses are easily translated to the table for scares a plenty. Remember also that people love to be scared. The adrenaline rush they get from having their heart quicken, even the appearance of goosebumps make the player alert, aware and in a heightened state. Don’t tame it down, pile it on!

Give some of these a try at your next horror game and let me know how it went! Until then, keep rolling, but look over your shoulder. Because I heard once that a GM dared to roll the dice in jest of the gods of horror and his soul was sucked straight from him. Now when a GM stands and sits three times while waving his d20 in the air saying Dire Derek Rolls they are struck down within 8 hours by an accidental death. Of course no one can prove that it is this same GM but better safe than sorry, right?

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

My fantasy games would mostly fall under the headings of fantasy horror if a genre was applied to them. I love the feeling I get when a player is creeped out by my game or they get involved, reacting with fear or horror at the game. It is largely why my favorite fantasy game is Earthdawn (I know I only play it via email at the moment and Pathfinder is my main game) where it is all about the darkness and the things that live there. Not to mention what they can do to you once they find you. This turns me to the point of my blog today. There are two definite streams of horror, the traditional path or the worlds of Lovecraft inspired weirdness.

Whichever style of horror you like is what you should concentrate on presenting to your players. I love Lovecraftian stuff but I do use the more Gothic Horror style on occasion to mix things up. Knowing the difference is the key to the way you get the players involved.

Traditional refers to those works of horror that became widely popular through mass media and literature. These tales were popularised by the Gothic Horror writers in the 18th century but their fodder for their novels was well established by this time. It stemmed from folklore and stories shared with a basis in religion or even pagan ritual. Largely, the novels written at the time were written by women and targeted at women focussing on a female protagonist that was caught in a spooky mansion with elements of the supernatural that tested them.

These initial stories were very popular in their time but few have common appeal today. It was not until Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that we see titles that are commonly thought of as traditional horror today. Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson amongst others that turned the idea of Horror into a creature feature, or horror of a deeper darker nature designed to scare the reader to the core. These titles endure to this day and scare every new generation. They endure because at their heart are tales of human vice and virtue played out in a fantastic way.

The traditional horror tack in fantasy games normally takes a known trope of the genre and plays it up to the group of players. As a GM you want the players to recognize the threat early and for the players knowledge of the threat to spur the horror. For example, using a vampire in a game causes all of the players to sit in a group and talk about what they know and what they need to do to survive. They treat every situation with kid gloves and wonder at the power of the creatures that they are facing. Will it die in sunlight? Can we get close enough to stake it? Has it got brainwashed spawn in the local community? The very presence of this type of creature almost dictates an investigation before the ultimate confrontation. Are the players up to the task? As they stare down the vampire they will feel their own hearts in their mouth as they roll the dice for initiative.

An off shoot of this style is to use creatures that has been made famous by the game itself. Consider the Beholder from Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). This creature is now synonymous with the game and nearly anyone that has played even a modicum of D&D knows of the floating eye tyrant. The responses tend to be the same so that we can recreate the idea of a traditional horror experience. I am sure that the first time the Beholder appeared that it was really quite a Lovecraftian style encounter though.

Lovecraftian horror is a newer version of horror and stems from the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft who was an unsuccessful but prolific horror author whose works are now strong influences on most major horror writers like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and James Herbert to name a few. Lovecraft wrote horror stories that focused on strange, alien forces that had little or no cares for humanity and the madness that they caused in humanity when they found them. Each power was a unique thing that existed with the knowledges hidden in the Universe. Almost all of these powers or creatures were extremely destructive in a way that humans are destructive when they tread on an anthill. That is these creatures are completely oblivious to the suffering or destruction that they cause and even when or if they do notice they have no cares for it. This horror style focuses more on the insignificance and horror of the unknown than it does on fear of a particular type of creature.

As Lovecraft was never a full time author and died young in 1937 it has taken some time for his works to become influential. In fact he was largely unheard of in the 1970’s but started to gain a following as influential authors started to site his name in their list of influences. Lovecraft focused on this alien style of horror but as his creations become more mainstream (e.g. Cthulhu) some of his writing would also work in games of traditional style horror with the more popular of his creations.

But it is this style of game that appeals to me. Lovecraftian horror is definitely a different feeling of horror. It contains an element of the hopelessness of humanity against the never-ending Universe. It highlights how little we know, and when used creatively, how desperate and offensive we can be in pursuit of this knowledge. It is why Earthdawn appeals to me. There are a loosely affiliated group of astral creatures called Horrors. If you want a traditional game you can use a Horror that is common in type but the games that commit to memory are the ones that use the unique, bizarre and most alien. Also these creatures live off emotion and the manipulation of humanity for the purpose of feeding is truly disgusting and alien to take on as well.

Cultists fall into both categories. If they are cultists of devils, demons or angels then they fall much more under the traditional category of horror. This is because these creatures, weird as they are, are all in place around humanity to teach them of sins which are known impulses and urges. Whereas a cultist of a Horror may worship it so that it can turn all snow purple. nobody knows why. But on investigation your hero may discover that the blood of living sacrifices is needed to turn the snow purple. These motivations are alien and therefore the horror much more different and the cultists will be much more random to portray than a devil worshipper.

In my next post I will look at the ways that you can begin to instill this feeling of horror into your game. There are techniques that work really well and get the players to feel the fear that their characters are. The techniques for both of the above streams of horror are largely very similar and I offered the description above as a primer for you. So until next time keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.